A new perspective on the topic of antibiotic resistance is beginning to emerge based on a
broader evolutionary and ecological understanding rather than from the traditional …

Our concept of a stable genome is evolving to one in which genomes are plastic and
responsive to environmental changes. Growing evidence shows that a variety of …

Bacteria spend their lives buffeted by changing environmental conditions. To adapt to and
survive these stresses, bacteria have global response systems that result in sweeping …

Forty years' experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many
cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades …

Biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus is subject to phase variation, and biofilm-
negative derivatives emerge sporadically from a biofilm-positive bacterial population. To …

Background Transposons, ie transposable elements (TEs), are the major internal
spontaneous mutation agents for the variability of eukaryotic genomes. To address the …

The IncP-7 plasmid pCAR1 of Pseudomonas resinovorans CA10 confers the ability to
degrade carbazole upon transfer to the recipient strain P. putida KT2440. We designed a …

We analyzed the target preferences of a Tn 3 family transposon Tn 4652. Alignment of 93
different insertion sites revealed a consensus sequence which resembles that of Tn 3 …

Antibiotics are used at therapeutic levels to treat disease, at slightly lower levels as
prophylactics, and at low, sub-therapeutic levels for growth promotion and improvement of …

It is essential for nonbiologists to understand that evolutionary theory based on random
mutation of autonomous genes is far from the last word on how genomes have changed in …